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New Marking Gauge

I found myself in need of a mid size marking gauge for milling rough lumber (by hand of course) so I mocked this up. It needs a better screw and knob as well as some overall refinement but I'll likely build a new one and still use this one.

It's cherry, mahogany and curly pear. The knife is O1 steel and needs a bit more camber before I harden the cutting edge. it's pretty hefty and can mark up to about 20" wide.

I should have taken pictures along the way but it was a little de-stress project and I was so in the zone I just busted it out in a couple hrs.

It has a captive block of cherry inside the gauge that applies pressure to the beam when the screw is tightened.

The knife sits about 1/64" lower than the bed of the fence, pulling it in a back and forth motion as you go cuts a nice line pretty quickly.

In other words, you can use it one handed with no trouble as the fence is wide enough and the beam is rigid enough to keep it on track. Also the bevel of the knife is on the inside keeping it from wandering inwards.

Does that answer your question? I may have misunderstood what you are asking.

I used an Exacto blade in the gauge that I built; It does tend to wander a bit. I think I will try beveling the blade to one side only to see if that stabilizes things a bit.

Thanks, Dennis.

The knife will try to wander away from the bevel - because of the bevel. A chisel edge with the bevel towards the fence makes it try to pull away from the fence, as it can't, it's helps keep it tracking straight instead. so I think you would see an improvement if you did that. I grind a slight bevel on pin marking gauges rather than a pin point for this same reason.

Also a cambered edge performs better than a spear point because it progressively cuts deeper, again reducing the pins tendency to wander.